Devotionals

---

Dull-Hearted Shepherds


For the shepherds have become dull-hearted,
And have not sought the LORD;
Therefore they shall not prosper,
And all their flocks shall be scattered.

(Jeremiah 10:21)



And so spells out the condition of my own family, in many respects … scattered emotionally, spiritually … though God is actively doing His work of restoration. Yet still, I reflect back over the years and cannot help but recognize a dull-hearted road I have inadvertently traveled.

How did I get from yesteryear to here? When did I step off the road, just the smallest step, until traveling it in a straight line I discover myself so very far from the way I yearn after?

The early years of single-parenthood, when my children were so young, so fragile, the Lord truly was my all-in-all. I couldn’t make a move without Him. He consumed my thoughts, my conversation and was the road upon which I tread moment-by-moment. My children knew it, knew Him, and together we walked within His embrace.

But somehow, somewhere along the line to independence, virtual-reality began disguising the footprints just barely off the way. What virtual-realities? All the shades of independence waiting to lay claim to ready soil.

Employment, that blessing of providing for my children. Adolescence, those days of guiding my children from childhood to adulthood, days of loosing the reigns, little-by-little, until they could find their own way. Decisions, made day-in and day-out in isolation as the guises of virtual-reality hid, entirely, the truth of wandering steps.

What was so easy, so natural while rearing my young children, became muddied in the chaos of daily living, daily survival, as they grew older and I moved to nudge them closer and closer to the independence of adulthood.

Dependency comes so naturally to children, even those that long for independence. But each step we take towards what we see as maturity is fraught with hidden dangers, all of them translated into the varying languages of independency. And each step down this misguided path moves us further and further into the land of the dull-hearted.

I wonder if we truly realize how often we ourselves have been granted the garb of shepherds. In our homes, in our neighborhoods, in our workplaces. No man is an island, even if we want to be. And where we walk, those that are watching, and they are watching, will in all likelihood follow. In one capacity or another. Are our steps leading to prosperity, or does scattering lie in our wake?

Look at families today, our neighborhoods, our nation ... our churches. We’re not left long to guess. Painful evidence covers every headline, decimates far too many homes, and leaves a world wandering in the dark.

Into this quagmire of lostness a Voice speaks, making straight the way.

... if My people
who are called by My name
will humble themselves,
and pray, and seek My face
and turn from their wicked ways,
then I will hear from heaven
and will forgive their sin and heal their land ...

No matter your land, no matter your flock, no matter your degree of prosperity or scattered-ness, the way of the dull-hearted never leads home, nor diminishes, apart from a complete and abiding dependence on God infiltrating every breathe of every day.

Our virtual-reality may beg independence. Reality, on the other hand, begs to differ. I need only look at the Son, listen as He speaks, to discover where the only reality exists:

... Most assuredly, I say to you,
the Son can do nothing of Himself ...


Nothing of Himself! If the Son depended totally on the Father, why do I think I can stand, for even a moment, on my own two feet? Arise a dull-hearted shepherd.

It may have appeared the merest step off the road, had I even noted it at the time, but what a long way its path has taken me. As a parent, I never stop being a shepherd, at least at heart. How easily I have unwittingly sought my own direction. Thank God, it is never too late to seek the Lord’s.

O LORD, I know the way of man is not in himself;
It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps.
O LORD, correct me ...

(Jeremiah 10:23-24a)





© DeAnna Brooks
27 October 2005

---

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE